


He Who Dares Not Grasp the Thorn Should Never Crave the Rose

by Shiloh_Grace



Category: Beauty and the Beast (1991), Beauty and the Beast (2017), Beauty and the Beast - All Media Types, La Belle et la Bête | Beauty and the Beast (Fairy Tale)
Genre: BATB, Beauty and the Beast, Disney, Fanfic, Fanfiction, Fic, Historical, Multi, Romance, Short Story, one shots, oneshots, relationships
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:35:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12909204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shiloh_Grace/pseuds/Shiloh_Grace
Summary: Feel free to request!Beauty and the Beast one-shots and short stories for all versions. From the original myths, to Madame Villeneuve's novel, to Jean Cocteau's, to Disney's movies, and beyond!Quote is from Anna Brontë's The Narrow Way.





	1. Chapter 1

**A Dance Unlikely**

_~ Stanfou ~_

efou spun several ladies around his fingers; they stayed for a few moments, then twisted off into an abyss of twirling mindlessness. 

 _How is it to dance with someone and think nothing of it?_ he wondered with a melancholy gleam in his eyes–with a choking bird in his heart, desiring to escape. 

He had danced many a time with _him_. Lefou did not want to mention his name anymore; no one did. 

But he could not forget him. How is it that everyone else’s minds seemed to be pierced with an arrow of absent-mindedness? The image of him–the flawless, glittering portrait of a _god_ , like the striking statues of old–it never desired to flee his mind. His swarthy features: the stubble that traced his prominent jaw, the wrinkles that crossed his forehead when he delved into his debonair simper, the clear, pristine orbs–golden and burnt from endless days in the sun. 

When one of his fellow members from the military had informed him of _his_ fall, Lefou locked the godly portrait in his mind. He attempted memorizing his tantalizing touch–how well Lefou’s minuscule hand had fit in his impressive one. 

 _Touch_.

He felt it: soft, pleasurable fingers suddenly intertwining with his, like grapevines running up the sides of an orchard’s entrance gate. Lefou recognized the intense sense from somewhere, but what woman had he recently–

 _Stanley_. 

He recalled the man who had comforted him during his time of grief: the only person who seemed to remember the god. 

And then the bird flew from Lefou’s chest as he glanced into the lovely man’s eyes, his expression wooden and inscrutable. The haughty picture he had memorized instantaneously melted away, revealing a sunset of scarlet and gold. 

Something crumpled Lefou’s abdomen, crushing and transforming it; the tight knot of his stomach grew and extended to the rest of his body as he turned away from his partner in dance. 

 _What could that have been?_ he wondered. The knot continued to form, spreading like wildfire and burning his insides. As it did, Lefou reminisced all the times Stanley had looked at him, comprehending his thoughts–understanding his senseless desires. 

Lefou knew he could not get carried away; he could not run around and fight for love. He realized the mistake he had made before. This time it would be different–he was sure of it. 

The fingers of other ladies lightly embraced his for several moments at a time, but nothing compared to Stanley’s. A dance unlikely indeed.

* * *

A/N: I've never written for anything other than Belle/Beast in my life so this was very different and fun. :) Feel free to request. I have an original novel as well based off the original BATB fairytale on my published page. Don't forget to follow my Tumblr raph-fangirl for plenty of Beauty and the Beast and classic Disney/Broadway/literature posts!


	2. A Prince's Fading Memory (Part One)

**_A Prince's Fading Memory_ **

_~ Pre-curse 2017 Adam ~_

_~ Part One ~_

* * *

_Dedicated to mickandcookies on Tumblr_

* * *

I remember my life in snippets—in moments. If I attempt to recall my childhood in the manner of a grandiose play, one where the scenes are chronologically sewn together, I could not do it. As trying to reminisce all of them is hard enough, without the arduous process of putting them together.

But I can always see that glimmering first memory. It's replayed in my head for over twenty years, dimming a bit yet never fading entirely. I must have been, oh, let's say three or four, tightly holding my mother's hand and waiting patiently for her mouth to open again. I watched them—her lips—longing for her sweet, melodic voice… longing to see if any honey would drip out of her mouth once they parted. We were taking a stroll through the garden. Sometimes she'd let go of my hand and perhaps pick a flower or fruit, but somehow my fingers would always find a way wrapped back around hers. I never wanted to let go, never wanted to say goodbye.

For the first nine years of my life, I was safeguarded—protected by the gleaming bubble of childhood: the fragrant aromas arousing from the kitchen, fluttering like butterflies to my room in the heart of the castle; Mrs. Potts's jubilant grin as she saw her tea had successfully trickled down my insides and warmed me up; the shadowy trees encasing the lawn, holding me tightly as I silently counted which branches looked normal and which ones looked like hands. Every day, the same servants clothed me, fed me, adored me—and so did my mother.

Yet my father was never there. He was the only part of my memory that was incomplete, a dead end in a cave, a crescendoing orchestra suddenly yielded by the conductor. Even so, it is he who I remember most, more than Mother. Perhaps it was all those women coming to visit him in another room and my mother sniffling on the settee and her cooing softly to me to never be like that. Or perhaps it was because The Man Who Was Never There introduced me to my new, invigorating life—my dangerous, new ideology.

I broke a promise with a dead woman. She whispered delicately to never be like my father—and always to remember her. I tried. I tried so hard to memorize the sensation of one of her hands overlapping mine, the other cupping my palm underneath, just as she had always done—just as she would never do again. I tried to memorize her sandpapery fingers as they stroked my cheek, sheets of stiff, rough ice cutting into my skin. She looked like a Goddess of Winter, moonlight from the window slightly illuminating her cracked, thin face. Her bedroom was just her bedroom now, no longer shared by my father. He wasn't even there as she lay dying. I wanted to know why; I wanted to understand. But he never told me.

The proceeding days and months are fragmented in my mind. The thousands of memories, depicted on canvases, bleed into each other. Splattered paint runs through the nightmarish scenes, spilling over and affecting every single one. It is a continuous ball of yarn, spinning and swirling and sewing my endless nightmare together. One painting, one day, one nightmare, all crooned together, "Straighten up, son. It happens to all of us one day—the finale."

He said I would become accustomed to it, said I would forget her; all women are eventually forgotten anyway.

But I never forgot.

* * *

They conversed in the hallways—rapid firings of words and gossip that reached my ears, tingling them. It was the utterances of aging butlers and guards, carried along with the pounding of their footsteps against the marble: "I don't believe in it—no sir!—I don't believe in it. He needs to come out." Or, even worse, the high-pitched squeal of a fat maid, sputtering, "It's just not right for him to be cooped up in there! Imagine: a young boy, a young prince, wasting his life away in his mother's room!"

But they never once mentioned my father. Never once mentioned the pain and loss of my mother. They only mentioned me—it was my fault.

Seldom times Father peeked into the room—his old room—noticing me tracing my mother's figure where she had last laid. Whenever he entered a room, the walls closed in on me, the pressure unbearable. Then his wrinkles twisted together and his mouth curved into a malicious grin as he jeered at me, his sharp, cutting remarks tearing holes in my skin: "She'll never be back, feeble boy, and you know that! Move on! If you continue this attitude of all mope and no move, then you'll end up like her too!"

At the time, I was unaware of why my father did what he did. I heard his laughter billowing throughout the hallways; I recall his bursts of delight and pleasure stemming from unknown rooms—from unknown women. His brash voice remains in my mind, shining splendidly above all the rest of my memories. It is that I remember most about him, and that which I wish to forget.

There are other voices: ones less poignantly portrayed in the painting of my memory, yet happier—strikingly happier. Although they do not billow in the field of my mind and although they are not so vivid as to appear before me, it is these happier remembrances that allowed me to withstand my father's tyranny. The memories consisted of Mrs. Potts's revitalizing tea she brought me each morning, allowing me to forget of the night before. The heat issuing out of her cups defrosted the foggy windowpanes, and suddenly everything in my room became clear and defined. The memories were also of the chessboard Lumière and Cogsworth brought each time they pretended to be checking on me. Learning and mastering the game proved to be easy, compared to the trivial task of learning to cope with my father.

I read daily. It was the only means of true escape, of true delight. When no servant desired to speak of my deceased mother or my traitorous father, the humans in my novels would. When all Father could do was herd women into the castle, like cattle, I preferred to imagine that I could put an end to his grave reign as fantastic, magnanimous heroes had in chivalric tales of old. Each week, I had servants bring me bountiful baskets of books which I would all read within that amount of time. Some were longer, some shorter. Some I thoroughly enjoyed, biting into the details, and some I threw to the side after the first page. Some were in French—effortless to understand—and some were in languages I was learning—a chore to comprehend. However, I had to tuck away my dearest stories which I preferred most: Shakespeare. For, each time Father found me reading anything in English, he would snatch the book out of my hands and howl, "What a fine French prince you're making out to be! Filling your head with tales of the North, are we? Reading the literature of our enemies, are we? No more of it! A dangerous habit you have commenced."

Did I cease reading Shakespeare? Of course not. Did I commence bending over backward in an attempt to hide the truth from my father? Of course.

Time passed, and though I am not sure how much approximately, it was enough for Father to delight himself with a new wife. The days continually bled into each other, one memory singing into the next, one light fading into the dimness of yesterday and a new dawn breaking through the castle walls. But one moment tears my mind apart—it rips the quilt: I am tracing my mother's figure on the bed where she had last laid, an act I performed every morning. At once, my father bursts in through the gargantuan doors with a woman I have never seen. His hair looks like two waterfalls toppling over—gaudy, ghastly. But the creature standing beside him is far beyond even that in her beautified state. The woman's skin displays cracks and breaks, as her powder is sliding off her face. She is sweating profusely, and the defined circle of rouge gradually bleeds off her cheeks—not fast enough, however.

Only painting her face on certain occasions, Mother never presented herself as anything of the like.

"Meet your new mother, Adam!" Father calls, clinging tightly to his bride. Sluggishly, I lumber across the floor to the woman and kiss her cheek, dry particles from the powder remaining on my lips afterward. I cannot bring myself to remember her name, but "Princess of Powder and Pomp" is close enough.

Even with the princess in my father's life, the herds of women—of cattle—continued to flood the castle. I thought perhaps he would change, but he didn't. I thought perhaps I would change, ceasing concerning myself with what Father did, but I didn't. Only then I remembered that I was an adolescent and that everything my father did affected my life in some way. I finally realized I was trapped.

* * *

"Come, come, young master, let me hear your lovely voice!" Madame Garderobe sounded in her thick, sumptuous accent. "I remember when you were a little boy and you would sing so prettily in the gardens. Could you do that again, for me?"

The servants' attempts to will me out of my room were becoming intolerable. I knew what they were doing. The two stood in the doorway of my room, towering over me with gleaming, eager smiles on their faces. Although I had always enjoyed Madame Garderobe's vibrant voice and Cadenza's masterful striking of the keys, their talent and charm would not be winning me over today.

"No," I stated.

"Would you at least consider attending a performance?" Cadenza questioned.

I sighed, running my thin, bony hands over my tailcoat and picking at the popping-off buttons. My hair was rustled and matted up—thick and sweaty. I never changed attire, typically remaining in the same drab for several days at a time: positively no state to be attending a performance.

"As long as I can remain like this," I gestured to my sagging black pants and dripping silvery tailcoat, "I will consider."

Madame Garderobe crossed her arms and crinkled her nose, biting one side of her cheek with disdain; her dramatic wig seemed to tilt over as she shook her head disapprovingly. Cadenza only snickered at her reaction, stating, "The performance will begin in four hours, master—in the castle's theatre."

God, I wished I had never gone, but I did. The space in the theatre was too open, a large field full of wild animals pestering me, begging me on their knees and wanting to know why I hadn't come out of my room for so long. They were the servants, continually hoarding my space as I made way to my box in the theatre.

Once they were gone, the only thing left to worry about was the tragic fashion of the stage. Its velvety reds engaged my eyes, and the black of the walls drew me in closer, like being sucked into the darkness of the night sky. A tall sickness loomed over my head, causing me to become nauseous.

The act began with an alarming introduction from Madame Garderobe who, with her immense voice, laid out the scenes for the story: a young maid walking through the forest, running her hands across each branch and tree leaf. I wasn't even slightly intrugied—in fact, I was repulsed—until there was  _her_.

It was the gleaming young maid climbing onto the stage, entranced by the false forest surrounding her. The voice streaming off her lips echoed in my heart, awakening my senses. It was light and silky, like water trickling down smooth stones. I was alive. I knew I was alive after drinking in her heart-shaped face and doey eyes. The rest of the act did not matter at all; no plot twists, songs, or other characters could have possibly been more electrifying than her.

Suddenly, a shocking impulse came over me—an urge to touch her, to dance with her, to know who she was. I recall sprinting to Cadenza after the performance, brimming, teeming, alive.

"Who is she? Who  _is_  she—the young maid?!"

"Ah! Yes, master, that was Mademoiselle Diane, daughter of the Viscount of Bassac!" He spoke most ravishingly of the girl, telling of her accomplishments in the arts. She had performed in many areas throughout France, earning her a title of prestige in the arts.

"Where could I meet her? Will she be coming back?" I asked, pushing through the leaving crowd, attempting to see if the girl was still on stage—attempting to see if she was still smelling the flowers and touching the tree trunks.

He chuckled, laying a hand on my shoulder. "She performs much in her hometown of Poitiers. Perhaps you can see her on one of your travels."

"Travels, Cadenza?" My mouth tilted downward, slumping into a suspicious scowl. "You are quite aware I am not fond of such things."

"Perhaps not, young master, perhaps not." He paused, gazing into my eyes and searching for the flame that had once lied therein—the scorching, blazing blue flame. "But you are young."

"What does youth have to do with it?"

"When I was your age, I didn't care how far I had to travel to find a pretty girl."

I burst out laughing, cutting him off. "A pretty girl?! A pretty girl with silky strands of hay for hair and the afternoon skies for eyes? Oh, those radiant eyes, how they can taunt. I wish to have nothing to do with any  _girl_."

Cadenza's features shifted, his dark, poofy eyebrows knitting together for only a moment; the brows were contrasted with the powdery whiteness of his face and the light dusting of rouge across his cheeks. "Master, I— Do forgive me if I am wrong, but you have not  _been_  with a woman before, I should like to think."

A wailing wind crept through the curtains, reaching the back of the stage. The chatter amongst leaving people could still be heard, ringing in my ears.

"Well— No, I have not," I replied, strands of straggly hair falling over my eyes, covering my nose.

Cadenza grinned, two defined circles protruding from his skin, round and pink and large. The basket of pale, powdery white hair on his head shook as he nodded knowingly. "Do not allow the dullness of adolescence to define who you are—who you _become_." He winked at me. "Mademoiselle Diane's next performance will be in Poitiers next month."

* * *

**Author's Note**

This is part one of a two-part series focusing on pre-curse Adam. I hope y'all enjoyed reading part one as much as I enjoyed writing it! :)

I did change my writing style to reflect Prince Adam's changing mind. At first he's a kid, so I reflected that with lots of figurative language and the beauty of the world. The style is a bit more simple too. The next part is much more elaborate in the writing, as Adam is reading books and his mind is developing. He's probably a pre-teen in this. In the next part, he's in full teen angst mode and trying to deny his infatuation with Mademoiselle Diane: "the young maid." I tried to reflect this with a more satirical nature where he doesn't seem to enjoy doing anything.

I focused more on character and plot in this instead of historical accuracy. I did barely any research, so please point out anything that is just down-right  _wrong_  in terms of inaccuracy.

Comments are much appreciated, as I worked very hard on this.


End file.
